every one of my summers has had a theme.
growing up very fast.
letting go.
beautiful friendships.
my weakness and God's working anyways.
normally it takes me a few months after summer's end to come up with a word for it. but i've known what to call this one since may.
back in february, me and kathleen went to do a camp promo together in camden. we were talking about how we both wanted this summer to be all about prayer. we wanted to ask God to do big things, not just to help us do the little we thought we could. so we agreed on two big things we wanted to pray together for over the next few months.
we asked God for 1500 campers. we got 1598.
we asked him for 30 staffers. we got 31. and not only that, but as a bonus, he gave us the most guys(and the BEST guys, no less) that we've ever had to work for coed week.
those were the two biggest and most significant, because they were so specific and we'd prayed for a long time. but there were others too.
me and hope started praying together for the staff in late march early april-ish. we agreed that both of our biggest concern was unity. so we asked God to bring us all together like we'd never seen before. as i've written in so many posts already, he gave us a community so infinitely beyond anything i imagined, even in my "what the staff would be in a perfect world."
when me and carrie went to camp mccall for adventure rec training, she told me how she'd been praying a lot about what to do after graduation next year. over the next couple days i prayed for her too. and over those few days, God showed her exactly what he wanted. that was when i knew it was gonna be an amazing summer; before camp had even started God was already doing huge things.
i asked God to show me something new. well, what i actually said was, "surprise me." he showed me the heart for acteens i had no idea i'd had.
i asked him to give me a clear answer about something he'd been tugging at my heart about for a few months. he gave it to me.
and while this sounds really minor, it was a really crazy answer and a big deal for me. in may i found out that training camp for cross country was the same dates as the last week at la vida. so i'd have to either go back to school 3 hours after the second to last week of camp ended and miss the goodbye ceremony and a lot of my most special campers, or stay for camp and be impossibly behind the rest of the team. i knew cross country was a God thing, but i also knew camp was where i was supposed to be, so i was flip flopping between the two all summer long. some time in mid july i knew that even though it would be really hard to catch up with my running, camp was where i needed to be. three days after i said yes to God, i got an email saying cross country had been bumped up a week. not only would i get to stay for all of camp, but i'd get a day in between to rest before i moved into school.
prayer works. i'm convinced that that's what made this summer so different for me.
on sunday night, our end-of-summer sharing time lasted longer than it ever has in other years(though, to be fair, it was on a monday morning one year and a wednesday during rest time another), and almost all the stories had to do with things people had prayed about and seen answered. big, small, or just plain crazy things have happened simply because we asked God for them.
the moral of the story: in the words of hawk nelson, life would be so simple if we all just learned to pray.
i'm already lifting up next summer. =]
and this is the confidence we have toward him, that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. and if we know that he hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests that we have asked of him.~1 john 5:14-15
Saturday, August 11, 2012
Friday, August 10, 2012
sooner or later.
this summer has passed by in the weirdest of ways.
time wise, it's felt like a week and a half.
relationship wise, it's felt like four years.
but either way, it's over.
sooner or later, summer was over, and we lost everything.
i said last year that it never gets any easier to leave. but i've been saying for the past few weeks that i didn't think it'd be so hard this time. see, last year when i left, i didn't think i was ever coming back. but this year i've known since the second week that i'll be back(unless God very drastically changes his mind). so i figured that would make it easier.
but it's never leaving camp that's so hard. it's leaving my family.
no matter how many years i come back, it'll never be the same staff. yes, we'll have a LOT of returners next year, but not everyone. so knowing that it was the last day this staff, the best staff i've ever been part of, will be together, made it the hardest it's ever been to go.
this is the closest the staff has ever gotten as a whole. the level most get to in a whole summer, we got to orientation week. we're sisters.
and i'll be lost without them.
time wise, it's felt like a week and a half.
relationship wise, it's felt like four years.
but either way, it's over.
sooner or later, summer was over, and we lost everything.
i said last year that it never gets any easier to leave. but i've been saying for the past few weeks that i didn't think it'd be so hard this time. see, last year when i left, i didn't think i was ever coming back. but this year i've known since the second week that i'll be back(unless God very drastically changes his mind). so i figured that would make it easier.
but it's never leaving camp that's so hard. it's leaving my family.
no matter how many years i come back, it'll never be the same staff. yes, we'll have a LOT of returners next year, but not everyone. so knowing that it was the last day this staff, the best staff i've ever been part of, will be together, made it the hardest it's ever been to go.
this is the closest the staff has ever gotten as a whole. the level most get to in a whole summer, we got to orientation week. we're sisters.
and i'll be lost without them.
week 8: end-of-summer surprises.
i never knew i was capable of loving any campers this ridiculously much. then i got a cabin full of acteens.
and up until monday at about 10:22, i didn't think i'd be saying anything like that at the end of the week.
i'm at the opposite of a "loss for words" right now. i have so many words, so many big feelings, WAY too many incredible stories. i have no idea what to write or how to.
so i'm gonna tell a story first.
last friday afternoon, while i was waiting for my girls to leave, cindy came and asked me if i would be okay with having my cabin closed and working with the older girls this week.
what i thought i was signing up for? being a staffer in a cabin of sixth graders.
i got all excited and said of course i would. i figured it'd be the perfect last week: low maintenance campers that i'm not ultimately in charge of, tons of time to clean my other cabin, pack, hang out with other cabins when my cabin leader didn't need me, roll out of bed at 7:15 and walk to flags...etc etc.
well. a little later i was in the admin talking about how awesome this was, and bobbie tells me what i was actually signing up for: still being a cabin leader, just in cabin 2 instead of 8, for 7th-9th graders.
i freaked out worse than i did the day of my first mother-daughter camp. i came up with every excuse in the book to get out of it.
"i'm not cool enough for 14 year olds to listen to me!"
"i still look like i'm one of these girls!"
"i've never read the hunger games!"
"i don't know all the secrets of life yet!"
after spilling these out in rapid succession, bobbie looks at me and says "so you don't want to be cabin leader?" and my orange self(i'll explain that in a later post) heard a challenge somewhere in there, and said "well i'll DO it, but i won't be GOOD at it and these girls are NOT gonna want someone like me leading them..." and so on.
sunday night, i was still worried but in a more calm and serious way. i honestly thought there was no way i could be the kind of leader that girls that age need. little girls need you to braid their hair, hold their hands, and listen to endless stories about their pets; but once they hit middle school, they need you in a whole different way.
i told God all of this while i was trying to sleep that night. and he started bringing to my mind all the reasons why i loved my staffers when i was that age(another post about all of that is coming later too). i got out of bed and wrote down a whole list. i looked at it, and i still felt like i couldn't do it...but i also had that weird peace, where you're scared to death but at the same time you totally know God has a surprise coming.
and bless it, he had a big one.
not only was it THE perfect last week, it was one of the most incredible weeks of my whole "career" at camp.
important side note: the last week is already a special one every year. not only do all the staff suddenly embrace camp all over again because it's the LAST week, but there are some very special campers called Last Week Campers. these girls come the last week every year, and most of them have been doing this for years and years. half of them have been in each other's cabins before or at least know each other from past years. and all of them just love camp so much.
a while ago, i wrote about the relationship-y side and the leadership-y side of camp, and how i'm way over on the relationship-y side(explained here if you want, but it's really long). i thought that would be a bad thing for working with older campers; how are they supposed to take me seriously if all i want to do is be their friend?
but that's the whole point. you have to be their friend if you want them to take you seriously. it is ALL about relationship for them.
basically, i was made for acteens. who knew?
me and God and my girls all together made our week the most insane amount of fun. they had awesome attitudes about everything(from cleaning up after meals to listening in Bible study to picking up other cabins' trash to wearing dumb hats to breakfast). they were best friends within an hour. they were always ready to have fun, but just as ready to be serious and listen when it was time.
we loved each other like crazy. we laughed, we cried, we learned the story of stephen in a whole new way, we lost cabin capers every day because talking was more fun than cleaning...i could tell stories for a month. please ask me about it next time you see me.
i didn't feel like a cabin leader this week. i felt like we were all sisters, and i was just the big sister that the younger ones loved and looked up to. (and i felt really old on thursday night when someone reminded me that i'm eight or nine years older than most of them! wasn't it just yesterday that i wasn't allowed to tell any acteen campers my age because i was so young?)
when everyone told me how great it was to work with older ones, they never mentioned how much harder it is to say goodbye. each one took a little piece of my heart this week, and forgot to give it back on friday...so twelve pieces of my heart are now spread around south carolina.
but they're all coming back the last week next year. =] (and that's not just me saying it, like when i say "oh yes you ARE coming back" or something. when we were hugging and crying after lunch, they were all telling each other "it's okay, same time next year right?" and after agreeing, 24 eyes turn and burn holes in me, and one of them says "and linda. you HAVE to come back. or we'll be like, depressed, literally, the whole week.")
i'm gonna do a whole post about what i learned this week later. so i'll just skip to my amazing camper story of the week. even though there were SO many...
little A, who was super shy the first day, thought it was going to be a totally boring week, and told me that night not to hug her because "i don't mean to be rude, but it's just, it's like you're my mom, and that creeps me out." then she kept opening up more and more as the week went on, until thursday at bedtime she pulled me aside and said, "well, i kinda have a problem. see, i don't wanna leave? and like...this has been the most fun night of my life...and i love everybody here so much...and you know how you cried earlier? well i might do that tomorrow. is that okay?" then she added "can you be my mom? i mean not my real mom, but you're like my mom and i really love you."
B, who's been "my" camper for so many years, knew everything about camp and took all the first time campers under her wing. and she put on her camper survey that her favorite part of camp was meals, not just because the food is delicious, but mostly because of our fun conversations.(and i agree with her)
and C, who made it so hard to eat because she had us laughing too hard every day, who taught us that a worse singer than justin bieber DOES exist, and who knocked morgan and bean off the throne of "best dumb as a stick performers ever."
and don't even get me started on all of cabin 1. our cabin set was so awesome! all of our girls just floated together. they all made friends with each other and i was just as sad to see kathleen's girls leave as i was for my own.
then my adventure rec group was amazing, as 99% of acteen groups are. even though they had all done it before, so they knew all the "answers" for debriefing. but they just had so much fun together. until this week i'd never had a whole group change their minds and beg to finish the ropes course instead of climbing the rock wall. they loved each other. they wanted to do everything and never complained, even when it rained two days in a row and we had to play games in the unit 4 building so many hours(and i've never had that much fun playing them! i could have spent all 4 days that way and been fine).
i love my job so much. and as usual, after the best week of it, it's done for another year.
but that's another story for another post. which will be coming in the next hour or so. =]
and up until monday at about 10:22, i didn't think i'd be saying anything like that at the end of the week.
i'm at the opposite of a "loss for words" right now. i have so many words, so many big feelings, WAY too many incredible stories. i have no idea what to write or how to.
so i'm gonna tell a story first.
last friday afternoon, while i was waiting for my girls to leave, cindy came and asked me if i would be okay with having my cabin closed and working with the older girls this week.
what i thought i was signing up for? being a staffer in a cabin of sixth graders.
i got all excited and said of course i would. i figured it'd be the perfect last week: low maintenance campers that i'm not ultimately in charge of, tons of time to clean my other cabin, pack, hang out with other cabins when my cabin leader didn't need me, roll out of bed at 7:15 and walk to flags...etc etc.
well. a little later i was in the admin talking about how awesome this was, and bobbie tells me what i was actually signing up for: still being a cabin leader, just in cabin 2 instead of 8, for 7th-9th graders.
i freaked out worse than i did the day of my first mother-daughter camp. i came up with every excuse in the book to get out of it.
"i'm not cool enough for 14 year olds to listen to me!"
"i still look like i'm one of these girls!"
"i've never read the hunger games!"
"i don't know all the secrets of life yet!"
after spilling these out in rapid succession, bobbie looks at me and says "so you don't want to be cabin leader?" and my orange self(i'll explain that in a later post) heard a challenge somewhere in there, and said "well i'll DO it, but i won't be GOOD at it and these girls are NOT gonna want someone like me leading them..." and so on.
sunday night, i was still worried but in a more calm and serious way. i honestly thought there was no way i could be the kind of leader that girls that age need. little girls need you to braid their hair, hold their hands, and listen to endless stories about their pets; but once they hit middle school, they need you in a whole different way.
i told God all of this while i was trying to sleep that night. and he started bringing to my mind all the reasons why i loved my staffers when i was that age(another post about all of that is coming later too). i got out of bed and wrote down a whole list. i looked at it, and i still felt like i couldn't do it...but i also had that weird peace, where you're scared to death but at the same time you totally know God has a surprise coming.
and bless it, he had a big one.
not only was it THE perfect last week, it was one of the most incredible weeks of my whole "career" at camp.
important side note: the last week is already a special one every year. not only do all the staff suddenly embrace camp all over again because it's the LAST week, but there are some very special campers called Last Week Campers. these girls come the last week every year, and most of them have been doing this for years and years. half of them have been in each other's cabins before or at least know each other from past years. and all of them just love camp so much.
a while ago, i wrote about the relationship-y side and the leadership-y side of camp, and how i'm way over on the relationship-y side(explained here if you want, but it's really long). i thought that would be a bad thing for working with older campers; how are they supposed to take me seriously if all i want to do is be their friend?
but that's the whole point. you have to be their friend if you want them to take you seriously. it is ALL about relationship for them.
basically, i was made for acteens. who knew?
me and God and my girls all together made our week the most insane amount of fun. they had awesome attitudes about everything(from cleaning up after meals to listening in Bible study to picking up other cabins' trash to wearing dumb hats to breakfast). they were best friends within an hour. they were always ready to have fun, but just as ready to be serious and listen when it was time.
we loved each other like crazy. we laughed, we cried, we learned the story of stephen in a whole new way, we lost cabin capers every day because talking was more fun than cleaning...i could tell stories for a month. please ask me about it next time you see me.
i didn't feel like a cabin leader this week. i felt like we were all sisters, and i was just the big sister that the younger ones loved and looked up to. (and i felt really old on thursday night when someone reminded me that i'm eight or nine years older than most of them! wasn't it just yesterday that i wasn't allowed to tell any acteen campers my age because i was so young?)
when everyone told me how great it was to work with older ones, they never mentioned how much harder it is to say goodbye. each one took a little piece of my heart this week, and forgot to give it back on friday...so twelve pieces of my heart are now spread around south carolina.
but they're all coming back the last week next year. =] (and that's not just me saying it, like when i say "oh yes you ARE coming back" or something. when we were hugging and crying after lunch, they were all telling each other "it's okay, same time next year right?" and after agreeing, 24 eyes turn and burn holes in me, and one of them says "and linda. you HAVE to come back. or we'll be like, depressed, literally, the whole week.")
i'm gonna do a whole post about what i learned this week later. so i'll just skip to my amazing camper story of the week. even though there were SO many...
little A, who was super shy the first day, thought it was going to be a totally boring week, and told me that night not to hug her because "i don't mean to be rude, but it's just, it's like you're my mom, and that creeps me out." then she kept opening up more and more as the week went on, until thursday at bedtime she pulled me aside and said, "well, i kinda have a problem. see, i don't wanna leave? and like...this has been the most fun night of my life...and i love everybody here so much...and you know how you cried earlier? well i might do that tomorrow. is that okay?" then she added "can you be my mom? i mean not my real mom, but you're like my mom and i really love you."
B, who's been "my" camper for so many years, knew everything about camp and took all the first time campers under her wing. and she put on her camper survey that her favorite part of camp was meals, not just because the food is delicious, but mostly because of our fun conversations.(and i agree with her)
and C, who made it so hard to eat because she had us laughing too hard every day, who taught us that a worse singer than justin bieber DOES exist, and who knocked morgan and bean off the throne of "best dumb as a stick performers ever."
and don't even get me started on all of cabin 1. our cabin set was so awesome! all of our girls just floated together. they all made friends with each other and i was just as sad to see kathleen's girls leave as i was for my own.
then my adventure rec group was amazing, as 99% of acteen groups are. even though they had all done it before, so they knew all the "answers" for debriefing. but they just had so much fun together. until this week i'd never had a whole group change their minds and beg to finish the ropes course instead of climbing the rock wall. they loved each other. they wanted to do everything and never complained, even when it rained two days in a row and we had to play games in the unit 4 building so many hours(and i've never had that much fun playing them! i could have spent all 4 days that way and been fine).
i love my job so much. and as usual, after the best week of it, it's done for another year.
but that's another story for another post. which will be coming in the next hour or so. =]
Sunday, August 5, 2012
lasts.
one last sunday night together.
one last monday morning prayer time.
one last group of campers.
one last talent show.
one last set of goodybes.
and the hardest ever goodbye that we only have to say once.
five more days. 121 more hours.
the end.
one last monday morning prayer time.
one last group of campers.
one last talent show.
one last set of goodybes.
and the hardest ever goodbye that we only have to say once.
five more days. 121 more hours.
the end.
beautiful things.
for God is my witness, how i yearn for you all with the affection of Christ Jesus. ~~philippians 1:8
dear 2012 staff.
i love you. and i say "you" instead of yall because because i love every single one of YOU and i want to make sure everyone knows this as they read it.
yes, i love the staff every year, but this is the most special one i've ever been a part of.
we're a family. we're the most beautiful picture of the idea of sisters in Christ that i've known in a very long time.
last year the staff was a clique. five or six separate cliques actually. while i had my own little group of friends who i loved, i didn't know any of the other staff. none of us knew how to BE if we weren't in our groups. there wasn't much encouragement going on. we never seemed to be serving together. sure we were all at camp together and were there to do the same job, but we just weren't on the same page. long story short it was a VERY difficult summer.
but this year we're a community. we love each other. and i don't just mean that we think we're all super cool people and really like being together(though that's true too!). i mean we LOVE each other. we pour into each other, we build each other up, we keep each other on track, we jump to help each other when anyone is struggling. we truly, genuinely love each other. and because there's all this love being spread around all the time, we help each other to better serve God and our campers. while everyone has a few people who they're closer to than others, we're still SO beautifully unified. speaking for myself, there's no one on staff who i wouldn't want to spend time with(you've seen me monday mornings at breakfast trying to decide who to sit with, right?).
at camp mccall, me and carrie's adventure rec group on our first day had to make a team "covenant pledge" to each other. i wrote about it here if you want all the details. basically we were defining the attitudes we wanted to have and how we were going to help each other as a team, and keep each other accountable to this pledge. our pledge was to be JUHST. yes it's an acronym and no it isn't spelled wrong. we had wanted to tell yall about it during orientation week, but without us even making a speech about it, i've seen the staff living it out all summer.
J: JESUS-LUV!(in order to really understand that, you have to hear it said. ask me or carrie to try to do it; it won't be the same as the guy who said it but maybe you'll still laugh. =] )
i see this every day. we love each other like Jesus does: all the time and no matter what. whether we're best friends with someone or have sat with them at just one meal all summer, we're here for each other.
and it is my prayer that your love may abound more and more, with knowledge and all discernment, so that you may approve what is excellent, and so be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God.~philippians 1:9-11
U: Unity.
we are one big family. yes there are some small groups of friends. but it's different than how it's been. i feel like within the 31 of us, each person loves all 30 other people, and then we each have a few people who we happened to get closer to. unlike the cliques of the past, i haven't noticed drama between or within the groups. it's like God blessed all of us with smaller support systems within the big system. i've seen so many God-glorifying friendships formed this year.
we are all here for the same purpose, and we all want to push each other towards that same goal.
just as our bodies have many parts, and each part has a special function, so it is with Christ's body. we are all part of his one body, and each of us has different work to do. and since we are all one body in Christ, we belong to each other, and each of us needs all the others.~romans 12:4-5
H: Humility.
i see so much encouragement going around the staff. no one is ever pointing out what they themselves are doing great at; we're too busy praising each other. on fridays after the girls leave and cindy has us tell stories, i love hearing yall say what God did that week. everyone is always praising God for what's happening, instead of acting like we were the ones doing all this great stuff.
besides our attitudes, i've seen a lot of this silent H in the way we work together. whether it's letting someone else have a break because we see that they need it more than we do, or helping out a cabin leader who doesn't have a staffer that week when we aren't even in their unit, we do such a good job of serving each other.
this is my commandment, that you love one another as i have loved you. greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.~john 15:12-13
do nothing out of selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others~philippians 2:3-4
S: Support.
again, we all have our friends who we go to, but anyone can go to anyone. we've got each other's backs. everywhere i go i see people passing each other and asking how they're doing. and we actually want to know HOW everyone's doing. we want to know if someone's tired, or needs prayer, or has a great camper story. we laugh together, we cry together. if i'm having a bad day, i can instantly be uplifted by hearing about someone else having a good day. there's no one i don't feel right going to for something, and i would do anything for anyone on staff who needed it. we all help each other whenever we can, whether it's in our job description or not.
i remember during staff week, when erin P got up and asked us to pray for her sister. she said "i wanted to share this with yall because i know we're all here for each other." that was one of the first moments i knew that it was going to be a great summer. we were supporting each other then, and we've only gotten better at it.
God put us together, and i think we've made him proud. =]
as each part does its own special work, it helps the other parts grow, so that the whole body is healthy and growing and full of love.~ephesians 4:16b
T: Trust.
this is the hardest one for me. i consider it a small miracle that i've been so open with so many of you this year, and there are very few who, if i had more time around, i wouldn't share a lot more with.(there aren't enough chances for me to see and talk to everybody) i don't really know what to say about everyone else on this because it's pretty personal so how am i supposed to know how much everyone trusts the rest of the staff, so i'll just say that for me, i've been able to put a lot of trust in you guys and i feel like we've made ourselves pretty safe.
i don't think it's necessary to trust every single person on staff with every little part of you. but as far as camp goes, we should be able to trust each other to a point as far as we relate to camp.
for instance, if someone asked "how's your week going?" could you tell them honestly? if you're having a hard day, if you're struggling to love your girls, if you haven't had a good attitude about camp? or on the positive side, if you'd just had a really good talk with a camper, if God had shown you something really cool that day? not that it's a terrible thing to just answer "oh just great!" when it is, or "okay" when it's not so good. but i've found that it can be so encouraging, both to you and the other person, to share life together for thirty seconds or two minutes or however long you have.
example. the other day me and perri were walking to canoes and i asked how her week was going. she told me about what she'd read during her Jesus time that day, and both of us got to be uplifted because i got to learn something really cool, and she got to be reassured that it was indeed a really cool thing.(totally putting her on the spot here, but you should ask her about John 1:1)
or for a negative one. near the beginning of the summer, i was having a hard day, and chana asked what was wrong. i told her, and she just hugged me and told me everyone loved me and wanted me to perk up and be happy linda again. and my day got better.
so, to tie a bow around this little story, you don't have to trust the whole staff with all your dirty laundry, or any of it really. but for camp's sake, it can make such a difference to trust each other with the parts of our hearts that relate to camp. when we're open in both our joys and our sorrows alike, we get to build each other up and we're able to serve so much better than if we kept everything to ourselves.
carry each other's burdens, and in this you will fulfill the law of Christ.~galatians 6:2
so. back to the verse at the beginning.
i love you all, and i hope you knew that way before reading it here. sharing this summer has blessed my life ridiculously and every one of you has played some part in that.
dear 2012 staff.
i love you. and i say "you" instead of yall because because i love every single one of YOU and i want to make sure everyone knows this as they read it.
yes, i love the staff every year, but this is the most special one i've ever been a part of.
we're a family. we're the most beautiful picture of the idea of sisters in Christ that i've known in a very long time.
last year the staff was a clique. five or six separate cliques actually. while i had my own little group of friends who i loved, i didn't know any of the other staff. none of us knew how to BE if we weren't in our groups. there wasn't much encouragement going on. we never seemed to be serving together. sure we were all at camp together and were there to do the same job, but we just weren't on the same page. long story short it was a VERY difficult summer.
but this year we're a community. we love each other. and i don't just mean that we think we're all super cool people and really like being together(though that's true too!). i mean we LOVE each other. we pour into each other, we build each other up, we keep each other on track, we jump to help each other when anyone is struggling. we truly, genuinely love each other. and because there's all this love being spread around all the time, we help each other to better serve God and our campers. while everyone has a few people who they're closer to than others, we're still SO beautifully unified. speaking for myself, there's no one on staff who i wouldn't want to spend time with(you've seen me monday mornings at breakfast trying to decide who to sit with, right?).
at camp mccall, me and carrie's adventure rec group on our first day had to make a team "covenant pledge" to each other. i wrote about it here if you want all the details. basically we were defining the attitudes we wanted to have and how we were going to help each other as a team, and keep each other accountable to this pledge. our pledge was to be JUHST. yes it's an acronym and no it isn't spelled wrong. we had wanted to tell yall about it during orientation week, but without us even making a speech about it, i've seen the staff living it out all summer.
J: JESUS-LUV!(in order to really understand that, you have to hear it said. ask me or carrie to try to do it; it won't be the same as the guy who said it but maybe you'll still laugh. =] )
i see this every day. we love each other like Jesus does: all the time and no matter what. whether we're best friends with someone or have sat with them at just one meal all summer, we're here for each other.
and it is my prayer that your love may abound more and more, with knowledge and all discernment, so that you may approve what is excellent, and so be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God.~philippians 1:9-11
U: Unity.
we are one big family. yes there are some small groups of friends. but it's different than how it's been. i feel like within the 31 of us, each person loves all 30 other people, and then we each have a few people who we happened to get closer to. unlike the cliques of the past, i haven't noticed drama between or within the groups. it's like God blessed all of us with smaller support systems within the big system. i've seen so many God-glorifying friendships formed this year.
we are all here for the same purpose, and we all want to push each other towards that same goal.
just as our bodies have many parts, and each part has a special function, so it is with Christ's body. we are all part of his one body, and each of us has different work to do. and since we are all one body in Christ, we belong to each other, and each of us needs all the others.~romans 12:4-5
H: Humility.
i see so much encouragement going around the staff. no one is ever pointing out what they themselves are doing great at; we're too busy praising each other. on fridays after the girls leave and cindy has us tell stories, i love hearing yall say what God did that week. everyone is always praising God for what's happening, instead of acting like we were the ones doing all this great stuff.
besides our attitudes, i've seen a lot of this silent H in the way we work together. whether it's letting someone else have a break because we see that they need it more than we do, or helping out a cabin leader who doesn't have a staffer that week when we aren't even in their unit, we do such a good job of serving each other.
this is my commandment, that you love one another as i have loved you. greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.~john 15:12-13
do nothing out of selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others~philippians 2:3-4
S: Support.
again, we all have our friends who we go to, but anyone can go to anyone. we've got each other's backs. everywhere i go i see people passing each other and asking how they're doing. and we actually want to know HOW everyone's doing. we want to know if someone's tired, or needs prayer, or has a great camper story. we laugh together, we cry together. if i'm having a bad day, i can instantly be uplifted by hearing about someone else having a good day. there's no one i don't feel right going to for something, and i would do anything for anyone on staff who needed it. we all help each other whenever we can, whether it's in our job description or not.
i remember during staff week, when erin P got up and asked us to pray for her sister. she said "i wanted to share this with yall because i know we're all here for each other." that was one of the first moments i knew that it was going to be a great summer. we were supporting each other then, and we've only gotten better at it.
God put us together, and i think we've made him proud. =]
as each part does its own special work, it helps the other parts grow, so that the whole body is healthy and growing and full of love.~ephesians 4:16b
T: Trust.
this is the hardest one for me. i consider it a small miracle that i've been so open with so many of you this year, and there are very few who, if i had more time around, i wouldn't share a lot more with.(there aren't enough chances for me to see and talk to everybody) i don't really know what to say about everyone else on this because it's pretty personal so how am i supposed to know how much everyone trusts the rest of the staff, so i'll just say that for me, i've been able to put a lot of trust in you guys and i feel like we've made ourselves pretty safe.
i don't think it's necessary to trust every single person on staff with every little part of you. but as far as camp goes, we should be able to trust each other to a point as far as we relate to camp.
for instance, if someone asked "how's your week going?" could you tell them honestly? if you're having a hard day, if you're struggling to love your girls, if you haven't had a good attitude about camp? or on the positive side, if you'd just had a really good talk with a camper, if God had shown you something really cool that day? not that it's a terrible thing to just answer "oh just great!" when it is, or "okay" when it's not so good. but i've found that it can be so encouraging, both to you and the other person, to share life together for thirty seconds or two minutes or however long you have.
example. the other day me and perri were walking to canoes and i asked how her week was going. she told me about what she'd read during her Jesus time that day, and both of us got to be uplifted because i got to learn something really cool, and she got to be reassured that it was indeed a really cool thing.(totally putting her on the spot here, but you should ask her about John 1:1)
or for a negative one. near the beginning of the summer, i was having a hard day, and chana asked what was wrong. i told her, and she just hugged me and told me everyone loved me and wanted me to perk up and be happy linda again. and my day got better.
so, to tie a bow around this little story, you don't have to trust the whole staff with all your dirty laundry, or any of it really. but for camp's sake, it can make such a difference to trust each other with the parts of our hearts that relate to camp. when we're open in both our joys and our sorrows alike, we get to build each other up and we're able to serve so much better than if we kept everything to ourselves.
carry each other's burdens, and in this you will fulfill the law of Christ.~galatians 6:2
so. back to the verse at the beginning.
i love you all, and i hope you knew that way before reading it here. sharing this summer has blessed my life ridiculously and every one of you has played some part in that.
Saturday, August 4, 2012
week 7.1: 6th graders and boys and goodbyes, oh my.
this was the BEST coed camp in all five of my summers. no staff drama, no boy crazy campers, no near deaths in adventure rec, no midnight pranks. these guys made me wish we had coed camp all summer.
my cabin was great! i had eight 6th graders, two 5th graders and one 8th grader, which was different but they were all good. it's weird that middle schoolers used to scare me to death, but now they all think i'm cool. i've learned how to shut attitudes down, and they're too old to get homesick(or if they do, they're old enough that i can tell them to suck it up[not in those exact words, but in a loving way]), which are the two things that make up my definition of "bad campers." so with those knocked out, i can just sit back and enjoy the fact that they get my sarcasm, they can have adult conversations, and they're actually interested in Bible study.
groups like these make me wish we had two week sessions like crestridge does. i had two who had been good all week then started acting up on thursday afternoon, and if we'd had more than 16 hours left together i could have addressed it, but it made more sense to ignore it and move on with life. another two were really shy the first few days then thursday afternoon they had just begun to come out of their shells. and three of them grew up in my old church with me, so i wished i could have spent a lot more time with them. all 11 of them would have been great to have for longer, and none of them wanted to leave on friday.
the best part of my week, and one of the best parts of my summer, was Bible study time on wednesday was one of the best that i've ever had. the first two days i had gone by the book and they had been bored out of their minds. day three is the really important one where we lay out the gospel. i really like the way we do it this year; it centers on Jesus calling the 12 disciples, how they chose to follow him, and what it means for us to follow him. some years it's focused more on the initial accepting Jesus part, but i love how this one emphasizes how being a Christian is a life long thing, not just saying one prayer("one...DONE!"). so anyways, this week i read the Bible story as it was planned in the book, and the girls had so many great questions about so many big things, that we didn't bother doing anything else. we spent the whole rest of the time, and 15 minutes into our rest time, just talking.
-how did the people who wrote the NIV and the people who wrote all the other versions of the Bible make sure they were writing the same things?
-did the guys on the other two crosses with Jesus go to heaven?
-is some sin easier to forgive than others?
-if you've done a LOT of bad things, is it harder to become a Christian?
-if you're a Christian and you keep doing bad things, when does God say "enough is enough" and just give up on you?
needless to say i got to talk a LOT about grace. that last question especially. and so many of them had never had that explained to them. most of them thought what i thought for most of my life: you ask Jesus to be your savior, then YOU try YOUR best to live like him until you die and go to heaven. but no. you figure out that you can never be good enough on your own, trust Jesus to be good enough FOR you(because he is) so that God looks at you and sees Jesus instead of your sin, then each day trust him to be good enough THROUGH you so that everyone sees Jesus in your life and wants him in theirs too.
at one point one girl said "DANG miss linda, how do you do that?" and i asked what, and she says "you can just pull a Bible verse out of nowhere for anything!" i got to go on a rant about how it's the coolest book in the world and all the answers to everything are in there if you just dig for it, which raised more questions about how to know what's in what book and stuff.
top funny stories:
1. one night at dinner one of the boys asked if someone would go get him an apple off the salad bar. i fixed to get up and get him one, but paused and asked him "what can i get for this?" he thinks for a second, says "hold on." gets out a pen and paper and draws me this monkey with a speech balloon that says "i love you" and hands it to me and says "is this good?" i said i'd get him two apples if he wanted; but he said he only wanted the one. =]
2. girl in my cabin#1: if i had a billion dollars, i'd buy this cabin. with linda and jenna and tori in it.
girl in my cabin#2: and hope!
#1: no, hope is too loud.
for next week, the biggest thing to pray for would be the fact that i'll have high schoolers in my cabin! when i asked to try working with older ones, i'd expected more 6th graders like this past week, but i never thought i'd get the oldEST ones. they need really special staffers. since i was that age when mine were so important to me, i know just how much a cabin leader can make or break a 9th grader's week...and i'm really scared about that. pray that i'll know how to be their authority AND their friend, that i either won't have attitude-y campers or if i do i'll know how to handle them, and just that God will work through me. i'll be much less nervous if i keep remembering that it's not me who's in charge.
also for all of us as this is our last week. we're all tired but don't want to leave. and for me, this is also my last week before school starts. usually that week is spent at home. i don't know how i'll handle not having a transition time. pray that i focus on camp and not get distracted thinking about being alone in the world soon, that i enjoy my last week of being loved and getting hugs more than once a week
my cabin was great! i had eight 6th graders, two 5th graders and one 8th grader, which was different but they were all good. it's weird that middle schoolers used to scare me to death, but now they all think i'm cool. i've learned how to shut attitudes down, and they're too old to get homesick(or if they do, they're old enough that i can tell them to suck it up[not in those exact words, but in a loving way]), which are the two things that make up my definition of "bad campers." so with those knocked out, i can just sit back and enjoy the fact that they get my sarcasm, they can have adult conversations, and they're actually interested in Bible study.
groups like these make me wish we had two week sessions like crestridge does. i had two who had been good all week then started acting up on thursday afternoon, and if we'd had more than 16 hours left together i could have addressed it, but it made more sense to ignore it and move on with life. another two were really shy the first few days then thursday afternoon they had just begun to come out of their shells. and three of them grew up in my old church with me, so i wished i could have spent a lot more time with them. all 11 of them would have been great to have for longer, and none of them wanted to leave on friday.
the best part of my week, and one of the best parts of my summer, was Bible study time on wednesday was one of the best that i've ever had. the first two days i had gone by the book and they had been bored out of their minds. day three is the really important one where we lay out the gospel. i really like the way we do it this year; it centers on Jesus calling the 12 disciples, how they chose to follow him, and what it means for us to follow him. some years it's focused more on the initial accepting Jesus part, but i love how this one emphasizes how being a Christian is a life long thing, not just saying one prayer("one...DONE!"). so anyways, this week i read the Bible story as it was planned in the book, and the girls had so many great questions about so many big things, that we didn't bother doing anything else. we spent the whole rest of the time, and 15 minutes into our rest time, just talking.
-how did the people who wrote the NIV and the people who wrote all the other versions of the Bible make sure they were writing the same things?
-did the guys on the other two crosses with Jesus go to heaven?
-is some sin easier to forgive than others?
-if you've done a LOT of bad things, is it harder to become a Christian?
-if you're a Christian and you keep doing bad things, when does God say "enough is enough" and just give up on you?
needless to say i got to talk a LOT about grace. that last question especially. and so many of them had never had that explained to them. most of them thought what i thought for most of my life: you ask Jesus to be your savior, then YOU try YOUR best to live like him until you die and go to heaven. but no. you figure out that you can never be good enough on your own, trust Jesus to be good enough FOR you(because he is) so that God looks at you and sees Jesus instead of your sin, then each day trust him to be good enough THROUGH you so that everyone sees Jesus in your life and wants him in theirs too.
at one point one girl said "DANG miss linda, how do you do that?" and i asked what, and she says "you can just pull a Bible verse out of nowhere for anything!" i got to go on a rant about how it's the coolest book in the world and all the answers to everything are in there if you just dig for it, which raised more questions about how to know what's in what book and stuff.
top funny stories:
1. one night at dinner one of the boys asked if someone would go get him an apple off the salad bar. i fixed to get up and get him one, but paused and asked him "what can i get for this?" he thinks for a second, says "hold on." gets out a pen and paper and draws me this monkey with a speech balloon that says "i love you" and hands it to me and says "is this good?" i said i'd get him two apples if he wanted; but he said he only wanted the one. =]
2. girl in my cabin#1: if i had a billion dollars, i'd buy this cabin. with linda and jenna and tori in it.
girl in my cabin#2: and hope!
#1: no, hope is too loud.
for next week, the biggest thing to pray for would be the fact that i'll have high schoolers in my cabin! when i asked to try working with older ones, i'd expected more 6th graders like this past week, but i never thought i'd get the oldEST ones. they need really special staffers. since i was that age when mine were so important to me, i know just how much a cabin leader can make or break a 9th grader's week...and i'm really scared about that. pray that i'll know how to be their authority AND their friend, that i either won't have attitude-y campers or if i do i'll know how to handle them, and just that God will work through me. i'll be much less nervous if i keep remembering that it's not me who's in charge.
also for all of us as this is our last week. we're all tired but don't want to leave. and for me, this is also my last week before school starts. usually that week is spent at home. i don't know how i'll handle not having a transition time. pray that i focus on camp and not get distracted thinking about being alone in the world soon, that i enjoy my last week of being loved and getting hugs more than once a week
Friday, July 27, 2012
week 6.2: two more weeks.
heard a rumor that the end is near, but i just got comfortable here.
God called me away for a while this week. i didn't like the idea at first, but it turned out to be just what i needed.
i've been putting too much on myself this summer. i needed to be reminded that camp does not NEED me. God WANTS me there, but he could do it without me. as i said in this post from week 2, i got too tired to continue, but i was still pushing it, and the harder i tried to keep going, the more defeated i felt and the less i was able to do. it was finally one of those moments where God steps in and whispers, "you've done enough. let me take over for a little while."
it was hard, but i did it. and now i'm totally recharged and ready for the next two weeks.
but the more i say that, the more it sinks in: we have two more weeks. two more weeks. that's it. two weeks. ten camp days, twelve days together, fourteen calendar days, and we are done.
i'm not okay with that. where did our time go? just yesterday i woke up in cabin 4, got dressed and went out to the unit 1 flagpole with all the staff complaining about the ghost in cabin 3's shower, right? there can't be only two more weeks.
i know i'm coming back next year; God assured me of that by week 2. that's not what makes me sad.
this staff will never be together again. yes, plenty of us will come back next year, lots of us will keep in touch, we'll meet up at each other's schools sometimes, but we'll never all be working together again.
i'm not ready to let go of this yet.
God called me away for a while this week. i didn't like the idea at first, but it turned out to be just what i needed.
i've been putting too much on myself this summer. i needed to be reminded that camp does not NEED me. God WANTS me there, but he could do it without me. as i said in this post from week 2, i got too tired to continue, but i was still pushing it, and the harder i tried to keep going, the more defeated i felt and the less i was able to do. it was finally one of those moments where God steps in and whispers, "you've done enough. let me take over for a little while."
it was hard, but i did it. and now i'm totally recharged and ready for the next two weeks.
but the more i say that, the more it sinks in: we have two more weeks. two more weeks. that's it. two weeks. ten camp days, twelve days together, fourteen calendar days, and we are done.
i'm not okay with that. where did our time go? just yesterday i woke up in cabin 4, got dressed and went out to the unit 1 flagpole with all the staff complaining about the ghost in cabin 3's shower, right? there can't be only two more weeks.
i know i'm coming back next year; God assured me of that by week 2. that's not what makes me sad.
this staff will never be together again. yes, plenty of us will come back next year, lots of us will keep in touch, we'll meet up at each other's schools sometimes, but we'll never all be working together again.
i'm not ready to let go of this yet.
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